REGRETS, he has a few, but then again one thing’s for certain
He’s now without a job since voters lowered down his curtain
He’d grasped the big brass ring only to find it greased and slippery
So now he leaves stage left, a part of history.
Or maybe not. The political ditty, He did it Bob’s Way may someday return to the play list. Former agriculture minister Bob Speller, defeated in the June 28 federal election and replaced in the July 20 cabinet swearing in, says he has not given thought to his future plans.
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He does not rule out running again for the southern Ontario seat he lost after 16 years, nor does he brashly do a Martha Stewart and predict a comeback.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said in mid-July. “I have been busy, visiting the (Calgary) Stampede, wrapping up files, getting ready to move on.”
At times, Speller sounded as if he was closing a chapter in his life. “I had 16 great years in Parliament and sat in cabinet. Not many Canadians can say that.”
At other times, he sounded as if politics, or at least a try at politics, might still be in his future.
He mentioned the expressions of regret he had heard in telephone calls from farm leaders and in conversations with farmers, including some at the Stampede.
“The reception I got was super,” he said. “People were coming up to me and saying they were sorry I had lost. I had one guy come up to me and say I could run in Saskatchewan and I could win there.”
Clearly, Speller will need a job after an adult life mainly filled with being a politician or a political aide in Toronto and Ottawa.
At 48, he is seven years shy of eligibility for his parliamentary pension, which the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation had calculated will be more than $70,000 annually.
At least the past seven months has allowed him to pad out his CV a little – member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council and Canada’s 29th federal agriculture minister.
With just seven months on the job, Speller doesn’t leave a long list of accomplishments – announcing a $995 million farm aid package in March mainly directed to BSE fallout and a vigorous, if so-far unsuccessful, worldwide lobby to try to reopen world markets to live Canadian cattle exports.
But his legacy may be deeper and longer.
Speller’s defeat brought seemingly genuine expressions of regret from farm leaders who thought they had acquired an important ally in Ottawa.
His example of good industry vibes, after several years of strained relations between Ottawa and the farm sector, may become a template for the next minister and those who follow.
It is not necessarily the victories won at international meetings or domestic cabinet meetings that endear agriculture ministers to their farmer constituents.
It is being able to convey to farmers that their voices are being heard, that their opinions are valued, that their criticisms of government policy are taken seriously and that they have an unconditional ally at the cabinet table.
“I think farmers want to feel that someone is really listening and then taking action,” he said. “It’s fairly simple.”
